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1869 I 

Copy 1 



ADDRESSES 



DELIVERED AT THE 



INAUGURATION 



JOHN P. GULLIVER, D. D„ 



PRESIDENT OF KNOX COLLEGE. 



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ADDRESSES 



DELIVERED AT 



THE INAUGURATION 



REV. JOHN P. GULLIVER, D. D., 

/a 



President of Knox College* 



GALESBURG, ILLINOIS, 



June S5tli, A.. r>. 1869. 



1r 






PUBLISHED BY THE TRUSTEES. 



GALESBURG, ILL. : 

PRINTED AT THE TREE PRESS STEAM BOOK AND JOB OFFICE. 

1869. 



INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. 

The inauguration of Rev. John P. Gulliver, D. D., as 
President of Knox College took place on the 25th of June, 1869. 
His election occurred the year before, but no favorable opportunity 
for the inauguration had before presented itself. Dr. Edward 
Beecher presided on the occasion and gave the address of 
Investiture. The Inaugural address was then delivered by the 
President. 



ADDRESS OF INVESTITURE, 



BY 



Key. EDWARD BEECHER, D. D. 



Dear Sir: 

By the Board of Trustees of Knox College, you have 
been elected to the office of President of this Institution. 

In this board are represented various denominations 
of evangelical Christians. 

The Institution was originally founded on principles 
of unity and confiding co-operation among them in the 
great work of Christian education. 

The vote by which you were chosen to this office, was 
perfectly unanimous. 

In all subsequent action on measures proposed by you 
there has been perfect unanimity in the board, and we 
trust that this mutual confidence and unanimity will 
never cease to exist. 

That this may be so we invoke the all pervading in- 
fluences of the Divine Spirit, the highest and most per- 
fect bond of unity, that we may be permanently joined 
together in love, that we may have wisdom to understand 
the great work to which we are called, and energy to 
execute it, for the glory of God and the welfare of this 
community, of our country and of the world. 



6 

It is an era in the history of this nation. The prin- 
ciples of liberty, and of true Christian organization 
have become triumphant. Our national unity and life 
are made sure. We are to be one nation from ocean 
to ocean. In our population all are and are to be 
represented. The great highway of commerce is across 
our continent. Hundreds of millions will soon inhabit 
its vast spaces and develop its boundless resources. 
Never was there such a nation to be educated and 
developed. 

Never were the principles of universal education more 
important or more earnestly and profoundly studied. 
The true system of American education is in fact one ; 
— but of it, the college has been and is the heart. Its 
influence moreover extends to every profession, and to 
every part of the social system. 

To the highest office in this Institution, consecrated 
and pledged to this great work, we have called you, re- 
lying on His aid, by whom we trust you have been 
prepared for the great work assigned to you, and by 
whom we trust you will be upheld, guided and blessed 

its execution. 

The work to which we have (Tailed you is great and 
responsible. There is none more so. You are to train 
the architects of human society, the guides of human life. 
The destinies of generations are often involved in the 
training of one lofty mind. 

But we do not call upon you to sustain responsibili- 
ties so vast alone. It is not our purpose to load you 
with duties, and then to paralyze you with unsympa- 
thizing criticism. 

We acknowledge that on us responsibility rests, as 



well as on you — on the trustees, on the faculty, on the 
alumni, on the students, on the community. 

First of all we need a high ideal of what can be at- 
tained by united counsels, and then this ideal should be 
carried out, by united, constant enthusiastic effort. 

Every community has an immense indirect power, by 
its public sentiment. It can create an atmosphere of 
life in which an institution will live and unfold itself in 
power and beauty. 

In a community in which there is on all sides true 
greatness of character, and a life according to the loftiest 
ideals, there is a constant and mighty educating and 
ennobling power. 

In a community mighty in prayer, there is a still high 
er educating power, for it secures the illumination and 
the training of the infinite and eternal mind, and who 
teacheth like Him. 

Moreover, when this spirit pervades the community, 
and the unutterable value of the ends aimed at is seen, 
wealth will be subordinated to its highest ends, intellec- 
tual and moral culture ; and all that is needed for the full 
development of the system of education, in its highest 
perfection, will be freely given. 

These responsibilities we acknowledge — and it is our 
purpose so far as in us lies, to see to it, that they are 
fully and nobly met. It is also our firm belief that all 
of those upon whom any responsibility rests, faculty, 
alumni, students, community, will concur with us. We 
will manifest towards you true Christian greatness of 
character, we will surround you by our sympathies, 
strengthen you by our aid and sustain you by our 
prayers. 

Our confidence in you and high esteem of you, we 



8 

have declared by our unanimous election of you to the 
highest office in our gift. We pray God that through 
your triumphant success that confidence and esteem may 
ever continue and increase. 

That this may be the result let us impress it deeply on 
our hearts that the fundamental elements of success, are 
found in the two highest develop ements of humanity, 
faith and love — faith to God and love to one another. 

The educational system of this Institution is wide and 
complex. Manifold are the principles to be discussed, 
and the questions to be settled, and yet under the influ- 
ence of faith and love, we can meet and decide them all- 
Nor are mere teaching and classical and scientific at- 
tainments enough. An institution like this is perfect 
only when the unity, and community of love is felt by 
all. When officers rule and teach, and students study 
and obey in love, then there will be no schism in the 
body, but the members will have the same care for one 
another, and if one member suffers all the members will 
suffer with it, or one member be honored all the members 
will rejoice with it. 

Thus only can be produced that atmosphere of perfect 
health, intellectual and moral, which shall render pos- 
sible the highest culture of all the powers in due pro- 
portion. Such love proceeds from God, and is the true 
sunshine of the soul. 

The time is foretold when this sunshine shall be uni- 
versal and incessant, when our sun shall no more go 
down, because God shall be our everlasting light, and 
the days of our mourning shall be ended. 

Let us have faith to believe that the advent of such a 
day is not only possible but sure. Let our ideal of edu- 
cation be based upon these principles. 



Let us believe in a future greater and more glorious, 
than has yet been conceived, and place ourselves in the 
channel in which now the purposes and the emotions of 
the infinite mind. Nothing is hopeless or impossible 
that is involved in the accomplishment of his purposes, 
and the execution of his plans. 

May he inspire you with wisdom, gird you with 
strength and by you execute the good pleasure of his 
will, diffusing tides of blessings on us and on all coming 
ages. 

With these assurances and hopes, and in the name of 
the Trustees, I present to you the keys of office, and 
declare you publicly invested with all the authority and 
prerogatives of President of Knox College. 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 



Gentlemen of tile Board of Trustees : 

I esteem it a fortunate circumstance, rather than the 
infelicity it would at first appear, that no opportunity 
has been given for the inaugural ceremony, which has 
just been performed, and for the words of greeting and 
reply which it naturally calls forth, at an earlier period. 
I have not regarded myself as having entered, till 
very recently, upon the actual administration of the 
affairs of Knox College. The months which have pre- 
ceded have been passed almost exclusively in observa- 
tion and inquiry. The history of the institution, the 
forces which have moved it, and contended in it 
and around it, the complicated and entirely unique 
combination of its various departments, the system of 
co-education of the sexes which has prevailed in it from 
the first, with the various attempted modifications of 
that system, and the interests of various religious de- 
nominations in its management, have suggested subjects 
of investigation which would have been sufficiently per- 
plexing to one familiar by personal experience with the 
facts, and which to a perfect stranger, as I was, present- 
ed a problem of great intricacy and delicacy. All I 
have thus far attempted therefore has been to watch the 
machinery of the college in its various departments 
when working freely in its accustomed manner, and to 
observe the individuals working in it when in their most 



12 

natural and unconstrained moods, and to note the influ- 
ences working about and upon it. 

At your meeting, a few weeks since, the conclusions to 
which this observation had led were reduced to a series 
of practical propositions, all of which you saw reason to 
adopt, after full discussion. Of the topics which have 
now been indicated, two or three are of such vital im- 
portance to the success of Knox College, as to demand 
our most careful and earnest attention. 

The first in historical order among the questions, with 
which as a Board of Trust you have had to deal, and one 
of the first in practical importance, is the question of 
denominational cooperation in the management and 
support of the College. 

The facts which bear upon this question are briefly 
these : The two denominations which have been prom- 
inent in the College management are almost identical. 
They had a similar origin among the great convulsions 
of the Reformation. They hold a common faith. They 
have the same educational aims and methods. Except 
during a short period, a few years since, when certain 
plans for the organization of churches on a union basis, 
were breaking up by an internal disrupting force, they 
have always sympathized and acted together. 

During this period of the separation of the Congrega- 
tional and Presbyterian elements which had hitherto 
been united in local churches and of the formation of new 
denominational connections, a question was almost 
necessarily raised as to which party should have control 
of the College. 

The fact that its projectors and founders were largely 
of one denomination, while its patrons and immediate 
supporters, owing to the settlement of Congregationalists 



13 

in this vicinity, came to be largely of another, very 
naturally gave rise to decided differences of opinion on 
this point. It was one of those questions concerning 
vested rights which have always been among the most 
difficult of adjustment. 

I must confess that on reading the history, my sen- 
timents as to the disgracefulness of this "quarrel," as it 
is often contemptuously called, which had been pretty 
decided, have given place to the conviction that it was 
one of those natural upheavals to which men and their 
passions are only incidents, and which have their origin 
among the elementary forces, over which individuals 
have little control. 

Moreover, it has seemed to me, for I am now speaking 
of my personal views, that while it would be foolish to 
deny that there was the usual amount of human imper- 
fection displayed in the strife, there has been, on the 
other hand, a very unusual amount of good sense and 
good feeling exhibited in the settlement of it. Both 
parties have accepted the situation as indicative of the 
will of Providence that Knox College should be, not a 
denominational college but a Christian college, and that 
there should be associated in its control not only repre- 
sentatives of the two denominations which have been 
most largely concerned in it, but also good men and true 
of other evangelical churches. 

It has accordingly been agreed on all hands, that so 
far as the Faculty are concerned, it is unworthy to in- 
quire carefully into any man's opinions, on such matters 
as the niceties of church order, and that, in their appoint- 
ment, such considerations should be allowed no weight 
whatever. In this spirit all parties have cordially united 
in the election of two Presidents of one denomination, 
and with equal unanimity in the election of a third of 



14 

another denomination, while the same course is being 
steadily pursued in regard to all the college officers. 

In the same spirit it was resolved, and the resolution 
has been solemnly reaffirmed, that fitness for the position' 
should be the sole consideration admitted in the election 
of Trustees, while at the same time it was arranged, by 
common consent, that so long as there should be any de- 
nominational jealousies requiring such precautions, 
the present proportion of members from each denomina- 
tion should be maintained. 

Upon that agreement we stand to-day. We stand 
there united, and there we shall undoubtedly continue to 
stand. That mischief makers, who have personal griev- 
ances to avenge, or personal ambitions to serve, may 
sometimes seek to accomplish their own purposes, under 
cover of a jealousy for denominational interests or 
rights, is not at all improbable. But that such persons 
will succeed in making any impression upon this Board 
of Trustees or upon any you are likely to select as your 
successors, does not seem to me at all probable. We are 
fully committed to the experiment of making Knox Col- 
lege a Christian College on the basis of a union of evan- 
gelical churches of various denominations. That 
experiment will be fully and fairly tried, without reserve, 
without guile, without suspicion, and without contention. 

The great question then is this — can such an experi- 
ment secure that cordial and liberal support from the 
Christian community which is necessary to success ? I 
a,dnrit at once that if Knox College was yet to be endow- 
ed, that question must be answered in the negative. The 
best colleges of the country have obtained their endow- 
ment for the purpose of educating men for the Christian 
Ministry. The general promotion of learning has been 
only a subordinate object. The desire, as quaintly ex- 



15 

pressed by the Puritans — that "every church should have 
a scholar to its minister" has been the chief incentive in 
the founding of colleges. This originated Harvard and 
Yale and all the New England and many of the other 
Eastern Colleges, and this also has founded all the most 
vigorous and promising institutions of the West. Even 
the State Universities with their large public endowment 
give no such signs of tenacious and concentrated vitality 
as do these religious colleges, organized for the highest 
purposes of Christian benevolence. 

It is plain therefore that if a man has ten thousand or 
fifty thousand dollars to give to ministerial education he 
will always give it where those views are taught which 
are most nearly in harmony with his own. Hence it 
comes to pass that each denomination desires its col- 
leges. They are its dependence and its pride. It looks 
to them for its future leaders. It depends on them for 
self perpetuation. A strictly denominational college 
therefore has great advantages in obtaining an endow- 
ment over one which equally represents the sentiments 
of many denominations. Though its work be the same 
and its results be of common benefit, yet the fact that 
it is not the exclusive property of any, seems to relieve 
any from special responsibility for it, and destroys 
special interest in it. 

Nor is this all. I am profoundly convinced that Christ 
intended to honor the organism of the local church, and 
of the associations of local churches under their various 
forms, by making them the chief instruments of the 
worlds renovation. 

I have no faith in associations of individuals unless 
they receive the sanction of the churches and come under 
their control, for the accomplishment of any but the 
most limited and temporary results. I have been in the 



16 

habit of predicting for years that the whole system of 
voluntary associations of every kind so far as they are 
organized independently of the churches, by the fortui- 
tous aggregation of individuals, would prove to be feeble 
and worthless — a result which is coming even sooner 
than I had anticipated. I am ready to admit that indi- 
vidualism — such as is especially rampant and self 
asserting in every new community, is not a principle out 
of which growth and strength can come. 

What hope then is there of growth or strength for 
Knox College ? Why must it not be a branch cut off 
from every fruitful vine ? The answer is at hand, and it 
is decisive. Knox College is not the product of individ- 
ualism, but has struck its roots deep into the organism 
of both the Christian churches which now hold control 
over it. It was founded at a time when these denomina- 
tions were one in name as well as in spirit, and Congrega- 
tionalism was pouring the whole of its richness, both of 
treasure and of men, into the Presbyterian church. 
From the first, this college has placed itself under the 
supervision of church organizations. The separation 
of Congregationalists and Presbyterians which subse- 
quently took place, was only nominal. In their 
common origin, in their common faith, in their com- 
mon usages, and in all their educational ideas, they 
are absolutely one. Even in the principles of their 
church polity, I am persuaded, and in this I am only 
giving my individual opinion, they are so nearly one 
that if the leading minds of both denominations were 
to-day to frame a system of church polity, de novo, they 
would hardly differ at all. The more liberal Presby- 
terians are coming to resist all interferences by church 
courts with matters pertaining exclusively to the affairs 
of a local church, with as much earnestness as Congrr- 



17 

gationalists. On the other hand Congregationalists who 
know what Congregationalism means, and are not mere 
ecclesiastical Bedouins, are resisting with equal zeal that 
rank individualism which ruthlessly tramples on the 
rights of the sisterhood of churches. Now can any man 
give good reason why two associations of churches 
which differ in little but in the title they bear, should 
disrupt a union which commenced when they had a 
common name, which grew with the growth of the party 
which at first was only slightly represented in it, till in 
the providence of God, through the multiplication of 
Congregationalist churches in this vicinity, the two came 
to have an equal representation in its Board of Control ? 
Can any objection be taken to an institution which 
opens its affairs as thoroughly to Presbyterian super- 
vision, as any Presbyterian college has ever done, and 
to Congregational supervision even more directly than 
Yale, or Amherst, or Dartmouth has ever done ? What 
benefits would either denomination get from a denomi- 
national college in Galesburg, which it does not obtain 
from Knox College, except the benefit of exclusive 
possession and the glory thereof ? And is that a benefit 
worthy of a moment's strife or of an instant's aliena- 
tion among brethren ? Would Christ our Lord, be 
pleased to see us fall out by the way over such a paltry 
issue ? Nay, let me ask, is it not a sin against Him, 
our great Head, is it not a sin against His church — the 
rending of His mystical body, when we so exalt our 
church above His church and our glory above His glory ? 
Is it not moreover a sin against civilization and against 
good learning, and against the nation, whose intellectual 
leaders are being educated by the churches, as its mas- 
ses are being educated by the public, when, for the 
glorification of sect, we so multiply colleges, that we 
have no colleges at all, and in our eagerness to possess 



18 

a little university apiece, we actually secure only a few 
second rate grammar schools. If there is a crime out- 
side the judicial calendar, as great as any within it, and 
as worthy of bonds or death, it is, in my view, this 
slaughter of the most precious interests of humanity, 
before the unholy shrine of a narrow and selfish sectari- 
anism. 

Now, though we admit, as we have done, that it might 
be difficult to obtain the endowment of a Union College, 
yet is it too much to expect that the endowment which 
has already been secured, will be harmoniously shared 
and controlled by these two divisions of a great and 
really united brotherhood ! Indeed is it too much to 
believe that there are broad, large-hearted men on both 
sides who will take special gratification in sustaining 
Knox College because it is one of the few remaining 
bonds of union, which were woven in the good old days 
of love and fellowship — because it still stands as a 
monument — an open visible proof of a true fraternity 
among those who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. 

Such, gentlemen, was the course of my thoughts when 
I ventured to accept your invitation to the charge of a 
college, which had come to have no denominational 
basis, but which rests on the broad foundation of the 
apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being, I 
trust, the chief corner stone. 

And this brings me to another leading fact, to which 
I would give the strongest possible emphasis on this 
occasion. Knox College though undenominational, as 
between the various evangelical churches, is thoroughly 
and emphatically denominational, as between these 
churches, and those well described by Peter, as "denying 
the Lord that bought them." The differences among 
the evangelical churches respect questions of philosophy 



19 

or of form,!which are important indeed, bnt which affect 
nothing which is essential to the soul's salvation. The 
difference between them and the group of sects, usually 
termed unevangelical, is the difference between the 
narrow way which leadeth unto life and the broad way 
which leadeth unto death. ■ Salvation only through faith 
in Christ is the doctrine of the one. Salvation by 
moralities, or rites, or pieties, or prayers, or some other 
human act or quality, is the doctrine of the other. 
The difference between them is wide as the great gulf 
which separates Dives and Lazarus. 

On this issue Knox College proposes to take no uncer- 
tain position. It is consecrated to Christ and His cross. 
It was founded by men who came to this wilderness , 
determined to know nothing but Jesus Christ and him 
crucified. It is now controlled by men who love the 
doctrines of the cross, as they love no earthly possession. 
All the instruction given in Knox College, all the philo- 
sophy there taught, all the power which is there generated, 
will be directed to the one object of making its students 
believers on Christ as the only Savior of man. In this 
there is to be no compromise, no silence, no concealment. 
We hang out the banner of the cross upon the outer 
wall and with the first New England College we inscribe 
upon our gates " Ghristo et ecclesiaeP 

But we should hardly do justice to this occasion did 
we fail to advert to the question which is, to say the 
least, agitating the surface of scholarly thought all over 
the world, even if it must be admitted to have but 
slightly disturbed as yet the depths of its profound con- 
victions. 

It is the question which in some quarters has been 
raised as to the respective positions of the languages and 
the sciences as parts of the college curriculum. The 



20 

causes of the present agitation of this subject, are to be 
found outside of any real skepticism among cultivated 
men as to the value of either of these great divisions of 
learning. In England an assault has been made upon 
the system of classical study which prevails in the 
universities and public grammar schools of that country, 
with its excessive memorizing, with its manufacture of 
machine verses, with its drill in such grammatical 
niceties as Xenophon or Cicero themselves would have 
been quite likely to have blundered about, on an exam- 
ination, with all the other absurdities of the traditional 
style of acquiring the ancient languages which has 
prevailed in those ancient institutions. The sharp 
criticism which this mediaeval nonsense has called out 
from some of the leading minds of Great Britain, has 
been extensively quoted by ill-informed writers on this 
side the water, as conclusive argument against all clas- 
sical study whatever. 

In our own country the desire to obtain the honors of 
graduation without that severe study which has given to 
academical degrees all their significance and value, has 
led one of our oldest universities to some hazardous 
experiments in constructing a royal road to learning, or 
at least to the honors of learning, for the special benefit of 
the aspiring aristocracy of a neighboring city, which is 
more likely to end in degrading the degree to the level 
of the candidates, than in educating the candidates to 
the level of the degree. 

In the West a similar desire to reach the goal of a 
degree in arts by some short process, which is supposed 
to avoid a great amount of useless drudgery and to 
retain only what is sensible, practical and useful, has 
aroused a strong popular sentiment against classical 
study. 



21 

Thousands also are much influenced by the changes 
rung upon the term "dead languages," as if a language 
could spoil, like an egg, or as if the geometry of Euclid 
were not just as dead, as the grammar of Herodotus. 
In fact there is nothing more utterly absurd to be found 
among the traditions of Oxford or St. Andrews, than is 
to be heard every day among ourselves from the advo- 
cates of the "new education." Still the discussion will 
compel us to understand ourselves, better perhaps than 
some classicists have hitherto done, and to make our- 
selves better understood, if possible, by the great, busy, 
practical public. 

In determining then what should be the studies of the 
college we need first to determine what is the precise 
sphere of the college. The college with its preparatory 
course occupies a peculiar place in education. It differs, 
on the one hand, from the common school, which is 
designed to impart that elementary knowledge which is 
demanded in every employment of men, however humble. 
Qn the other hand the college differs from the university. 
A university, in the proper sense of that term, is an insti- 
tution for learning and culture in every branch of 
knowledge. The sciences, the languages, the fine and 
useful arts, all history and all literature, have in the 
university the ablest living representatives and all 
possible appliances for illustration and investigation. 
It is designed to supply the means of universal knowl- 
edge. 

I need hardly say that, with perhaps two exceptions, 
our so called American "universities" are only ludicrous 
caricatures. But the College is emphatically an Ameri- 
can institution. 

As the American common school is to educate the 
rank and file of the army, the American college is to 



22 

•educate the officers, of every department, and of every 
arm of the service. Its aim therefore is as thoroughly 
practical as is that of the common school. The univer- 
sity may be used for practical purposes or it may furnish 
a resort for men of literary leisure and elegant culture. 
A college on the contrary has no place of education 
except for the men who are to engage in the actual battle 
of life. 

Now let us ask a plain common sense question, 
which any man can answer, whether versed in the learn- 
ing of the schools or not. What practically does a man 
need who expects a leading place in life, whether in the 
learned and literary professions, or in commercial, 
mechanical, manufacturing or agricultural pursuits ? He 
needs first of all, and chief of all, the control of his own 
faculties. He needs to perceive quickly and accurately ; 
he needs to combine his perceptions logically ; he needs 
to classify them according to their value as elements of 
reasoning, putting absolute certainties in one class, high 
probabilities in another, mere possibilities in a third, 
and conjectures in a fourth. Then he needs the skill to 
work out from these elements a result which shall be as 
nearly certain as any conclusion from probable reason- 
ing can be, to the human mind. 

Do you not see that the merchant, who can in this man- 
ner command his own powers will bear off the prizes of 
commerce from all competition ? that the mechanic, the 
manufacturer, the inventor who can do it, will triumph at 
the patent office and in the workshop ? that the farmer 
who can do it, will draw from the fruitful earth its 
choicest treasures ? that thephysician who can do it, will 
make the best diagnosis and the speediest cure ? and 
especially that the leader of thought and opinion, 
whether by pen or tongue, must have this complete and 



23 

ready command of all the apparatus of thought, in order 
to achieve even the most moderate success ? 

Now if we can lay out a course of study for the 
college, which shall fit men for these leading positions 
in all the callings of life, by giving them the control of 
their own faculties, we shall do the most important 
practical work possible in education. The minds of edu- 
cators have been directed to this problem for centuries. 
They have come in consequence by general consent, to 
use the natural sciences, to cultivate the powers of obser- 
vation, the mathematics, to cultivate the power of dealing 
with certainties and of reasoning from them to an abso- 
lute demonstration, and the languages, for the still more 
important purpose of learning how to combine certainties 
and probabilities, facts and principles, the fixed and the 
fluctuating, to evolve from the whole the best conclusion 
possible, and finally to estimate its exact value and rank 
as a possibility, a probability or a moral certainty. As 
this sort of mixed problem corresponds in character 
with the ordinary problems we have to solve in life, the 
American college gives a proportionate prominence to 
the culture which fits the student to grapple with it. 
The physical sciences, as a means of culture, have a 
place. They give quickness of observation ; they 
awaken an interest in a certain class of facts ; and they 
cultivate a profound confidence in the uniformity of 
nature in her ordinary working. But it is perfectly 
plain, that such a culture as this is totally inadequate 
to fit a man to deal with the intricate problems of actual 
life, or to grapple manfully and successfully with it's 
complicated difficulties. The scientists have not yet 
furnished any great leaders, in any department of life, 
except in their own specialties. As a basis of that 
general culture at which the American college aims, 



24 

while the sciences have a place, it is certainly a subor- 
dinate place. 

In a higher rank, altogether as a means of culture we 
find the pure and the mixed mathematics. They give accu- 
racy in conception, precision in statement, clearness 
and conclusiveness in reasoning. The ordinary con- 
versation, and still more the studied speech of a trained 
mathematician has the beauty of plate glass. You 
see through it every object accurately defined, cleanly 
cut, without refraction, and without discoloration. But 
the defect of this kind of culture when exclusive, is that 
it fails to prepare the mind to deal with 'probabilities and 
possibitities. The habit of depending on demonstrative 
reasoning exclusively, makes the mind weak, vacillating 
and even confused, when it is thrown into a motley 
crowd of facts and conjectures, of principles and suppo- 
sitions, of rumors and axioms, all vociferous for recog- 
nition, and confidence — a combination such as all men, 
who are leaders, have to deal with in every department 
of life. Gen. Geo. B. McClellanwas a notable example 
of the pitiable mental condition of a man who had 
received only a mathematical and scientific training, 
when called to deal with the actual problems of life. 
Indeed through all the early years of the war, the 
training of West Point showed the marked defects of 
this one-sided education. We had to educate our officers 
at a tremendous expense of treasure and of life, after 
the war begun. West Point made them tacticians ; the 
war had to make them strategists. West Point turned 
out corporals ; the war had to make them generals. 
West Point taught them to drill, and equip and organize 
an army ; to plan forts and build bridges ; and to call 
lustily for reinforcements, till they could see that every 
condition of the military problems they had worked out 
on the blackboard of the mathematical Professor at 



25 

the Academy, had taken its precise place on the field. 
But when it came to ascertaining the best that could be 
done with the means at command, when it came to 
weighing the testimony of Sambo as to the enemy's 
position, to sifting out facts from the prevarications of 
prisoners, to detecting wooden guns and masked 
batteries, to gathering a vast mass of confused 
certainties and uncertainties, and out of them, evolving 
a sensible and rational conclusion, such as might be 
trusted with the fate of armies and the destiny of the 
nation, this exclusive mathematical education showed 
itself to be lamentably defective. It was not till the 
later period of the war, that we found leaders capable of 
moral as well as mathematical reasoning, and they, 
came up from the training of practical life and were 
educated by events, quite as much as by West Point. 

Now in contrast to all this we have the broad and 
indisputable fact, that the intellectual leaders of the world, 
since first the revival of the ancient learning ended the 
darkness of the mediaeval period, have been classically 
trained men. I know this rule has its exceptions. There 
is no rule that has not. But a critical examination will 
show that even the exceptions prove the rule ; while the 
broad fact remains that the best class of men, in every 
department of life, have been college-bred men. To one 
who has himself studied the ancient languages there will 
seem nothing strange in this. Every Greek and Latin sen- 
tence presents to the student who attempts to translate it 
accurately, the same combination precisely, of certainties 
and uncertainties, of conjectures and facts, of possibilities 
and probabilities, which the problems of actual life 
present. Every boy who attempts to translate the first 
sentence of Cicero's orations against Cataline, "Quousqiie 
tandem abutere Catalina, patientia nostra ?" really goes 



26 

through the same mental process as a general employs 
in planning a battle, or a merchant in arranging a 
voyage, or a farmer in managing his crops. The 
u Quousque tandem" is as misty and uncertain as an 
excited contraband's description of an advancing army. 
Ahutere, is a slippery sort of word, ready, if pressed by 
a headlong inaccurate student, to do duty in the infinitive 
or the perfect plural, or as the second person singular — 
the last place probably which he will think of till 
better experience teaches him carefulness and accuracy. 
Then come Catalina, and paiientia nostra, which may be 
put in the nominative or vocative or ablative, as the drift 
of the sentence, interpreted by the student's judgment, 
shall determine. Now the boy who works for a half hour, 
as many boys have done, on that simple sentence, looking 
up grammatical forms, correcting mistakes, balancing 
probabilities, watching the drift of the meaning, as by 
and by he will have to watch the drift of the market or 
the value of land, or the set of politics, will, in that half 
hour, have learned lessons of more practical value to him 
in life, than he would get from a week's study of 
chemistry or a month's experience in a corner grocery. 
But this sentence is only one of ten perhaps, which he 
will have in that one lesson. The next will be much 
more intricate and will require, in a still higher degree, 
accuracy, patience, good judgment, a careful avoidance 
of error and an earnest search for truth. And the true 
translation, when he reaches it, will be found, not by a 
process of demonstration such as he uses in mathematics, 
but which is never employed in the common affairs 
of life, but by probable reasoning, such as he 
will be obliged to use every day. And when he has 
studied his ten sentences, he goes into the recitation 
room, to be subjected to a rigorous examination and 
drill, which will discover a score of mistakes, each one 



27 

r evealing to him some weak point in the working of 
his mind. Let this process be continued day after 
day, for six, eight or ten years, till the most accurate 
and thorough scholarship has been secured, and the 
mind comes to work with all the precision and delicacy 
of a chronometer, and you have the results sought 
for and constantly attained in our courses of classical 
study. The Latin and Greek of the college course 
may be abandoned on the day of graduation, all the 
knowledge gained may fade entirely from the memory, 
and yet the chief benefit of that classical study remain, 
in habits of accurate observation, in the power of 
reasoning, and especially in that power of balancing 
probabilities which we call "good judgment." I need 
not say that such an education is important in all the 
departments of life, for the farmer as truly as for the 
clergyman, for the mechanic as truly as for the lawyer, 
for woman in her sphere as truly as for man in his. In 
fact, of the studies pursued in the American College, 
there is no one which is so intensely practical, which 
touches our common life at so many points, as this study 
of language, the great representative and vehicle of all 
thought — the choicest, grandest, divinest gift of the 
Creator to the beings made in his image. 

And this brings me to another prominent point 
illustrative of the practical value of the study of the 
ancient languages. What, let me ask the plainest 
practical man who hears me, is the tool or the instrument 
or the machine or fae process which you make use of every 
day in your business more than any other ? If you are 
a farmer, you use the hoe and the plow and the reaper ; 
but there is another implement you use still more. If 
you are a mechanic you use the saw, the drill and the 
lathe; but there is another instrument you use still more. 
If you are a merchant, you use the price-current, the 



28 

ledger and the bank ; bnt there is another agent which 
is vastly more essential to your success than either and 
all. That agent or instrument is language. Your success 
in any calling in life depends more upon your skill in 
the use of language, than upon any other and all other 
handicrafts or accomplishments. What an advantage 
in making a bargain the man has, who knows how to 
use words precisely, skillfully and convincingly, over the 
man who simply blurts out his thoughts in clumsy, 
inaccurate, and perhaps ungrammatical speech, twisting 
up his ideas in a snarl of words, puzzling and fretting 
his interlocutor, whom he desires to conciliate and 
convince. What an advantage has a master mechanic 
who can give his directions clearly, over one who is 
obliged to spend half his earnings in repairing the 
mistakes into which his blind blundering modes of speech 
have led his workmen. In woman's sphere how great 
the difference between the household governed by a well 
trained mind and an accurate tongue, and one in which a 
confused intellect and a disordered speech have repro- 
duced confusion and disorder in parlor and pantry, in 
dining room and nursery, with my lady in the drawing 
room and Bridget in the kitchen. In the higher walks of 
literature and in the learned professions, language is not 
only the chief but the only instrument by which success 
in life can be secured. The study of language is beyond 
all question the most practical study which is pursued 
in the school or the college. A farmer uses verbs a 
thousand times, where he uses a scythe once. A merchant 
needs an accurate knowledge of the subjunctive mode 
every hour of the day, while he may not use his rules 
for calculating the rates of interest or exchange once a 
week. A lady will lower her rank in society more by 
one grammatical blunder, than by a hundred mistakes 
in etiquette. A lawyer will lose twenty cases by 



29 

confusion of speech, where he will gain one by an 
accurate citing of precedents. And yet, over the whole 
land, you will hear men who claim not only ordinary 
intelligence, but extraordinary intelligence, so extra- 
ordinary indeed, as to qualify them to set aside the 
opinions of the whole world of scholars as to the best 
methods of education, declaiming, vociferating in fact, 
that the study of chemistry which you may not have 
occasion to use ten times in your life, is practical, while 
the study of language, in its higher and universal form, 
which you employ every hour from the cradle to the 
grave, is a useless piece of antiquated folly. 

But it will possibly be asked by some, why employ the 
Latin and Greek in gaining a knowledge of languages ? 
Why not study English alone, or the French and 
German, or to quote the words of a vigorous reformer, 
"why not take the Choctaw or Hottentot, which there is 
a possibility may some day come of use, if your travels 
are extensive, rather than languages which no living 
being now uses on the face of the earth ?" The simple 
answer to which intelligent query is — that there is more 
to be learned of the laws of human speech in one 
sentence of Greek than in the whole vocabulary of the 
Choctaws and Hottentots, and that the same is measur- 
ably true of the English, French and German. It is one 
of the most curious facts in human history, that our 
modern civilization has found the precision of nomen- 
clature and the nice shades of grammatical distinction — 
the exact accuracy of case, and gender and number, and 
mode and time — which made the Greek an absolutely 
perfect language and the Latin approximately perfect, 
so inconvenient and troublesome, that we have chosen to 
return to the simplicity and indefiniteness of the Hebrew 
and other more primitive forms of human speech. 



30 

Absolutely the hardest way to teach a child grammar as 
a science, is to put him exclusively to the study of Lindley 
Murray or of any of his multitudinous successors. 
Absolutely the easiest way to teach a child grammar, 
even the grammar of his own language, is to take him 
by the seemingly roundabout process of learning at least 
the accidence of the Latin and Greek. Grammar in the 
one case, will present itself to him as a science, having 
principles, and some good degree of consistency and 
order. In the other case, it will seem to him little more 
than a mass of arbitrary rules, concerning inconsistent 
and variable usages, which are to be acquired by the 
mere force of memory, and which when acquired, will 
only be followed timidly and doubtfully in all the after 
life. 

To these grammatical reasons, the familiar fact is to be 
added, that a large part of our English tongue, especially 
in the department of science, is drawn directly, or 
mediately through the French, from the Greek and Latin 
languages, so that one would make but a sorry figure 
even in those "practical studies" which the apostles 
of the "new education" so much glorify, unless he first 
masters a large amount of the "dead" languages. 

The fact is, those so called "dead" languages are 
among the most vital, and imperishable elements of 
human history and progress. They live to-day inter- 
woven with the greatest thoughts of the greatest men of 
the race. They live, blooming with all the beauteousness 
of human speech, in the fairest gardens of poesy. They 
live, rolling forth the deep undertones of eloquence, and 
carolling out, with birdlike sweetness, its silvery strains, 
where the great orators of the world have written the 
scores of divinest emotion and thought, in the hierogly- 
phics of a speech not less divine. They live, intermingled 



31 

with, the inner being of the profoundest philosophy, and 
without them, the thoughts which for ages have been 
lifting the race out of the mire of barbarism into the 
light and fruitfulness of civilization would shrivel up and 
perish. They live in all science; they point the observa- 
tion of the Astronomer ; they palpitate in the gases of 
the Chemist; they guide the hammer of the Mineralogist; 
they write themselves upon the strata of the Geologist ; 
they paint their beautiful appellations upon every shell; 
they sit robed in some delicate terminology in the 
chamber of every flower ; they laugh upon you from the 
bursting cheeks of luscious fruits ; they gambol merrily 
among the winds ; they sweep, exquisitely attired, 
through the halls of Rhetoric, and grace, by their 
presence, the grandest structures of human thought. 
The more perfect of them was chosen by God to be the 
vehicle of his messages to man, and it lives in the "life 
and immortality " it is ever revealing to the race ! 
"Dead/" — The words we utter to-day, though, spoken 
by millions of living men all around the globe, are but 
the ephemeris of speech. Like the beautiful blossoms 
which just now covered our trees, they have spread them- 
selves over the surface of human thought, only to be 
blown away by the winds. All the living languages of 
earth, may, like their predecessors, easily be brought 
into confusion and beneath some new Babel may enter 
the sepulchre of tongues. But the words which bear in 
their delicate hands the fairest garlands of poetry, which 
have loaded their strong arms with the richest fruits of 
thought, which are holding upon their broad shoulders 
the grandest creations of philosophy, which are deftly 
constructing all our systems of science, and which have 
crystalized in their clear depths the revelations of God to 
man, will only become "dead" when the languages of 
earth shall all be exchanged for the speech of Heaven. 



32 

Perhaps, gentlemen, I have now sufficiently indicated 
my views concerning that part of the college course of 
study, the special object of which is the training of the 
mind. What has been said concerning the gymnastic 
studies simply comes to this : The ancient languages, 
the pure mathematics and the sciences, especially 
those which are capable of mathematical demonstration, 
should all be used for the purpose of culture — which is 
the grand purpose of the American college — and they 
should hold rank in the order in which they have now 
been named. 

In regard to those studies which have the acquirement 
of knowledge for their special object. I hold that it is 
the function of the college, simply to introduce the 
student to the circle of the sciences, and to give him that 
amount of knowledge of each, which will enable him to 
read intelligently upon them in after life, and to choose 
wisely which one of them he will make the subject of 
special study in the university and the professional 
school. 

In regard to the education of young ladies, which is 
wisely provided for in Knox College, I hold that it 
should be in all respects, as comprehensive and as 
thorough as that of the young men, so far as the 
physical strength of the pupils permits, and the limited 
time will allow which young ladies and their friends are 
willing to give. I have no objection moreover to a union 
of recitations whenever the subjects of study, and the 
equal endurance and culture of the classes allow the 
union without detriment to either. Still I am more and 
more inclined to the opinion that the highest amount of 
study of which young men are capable, cannot ordinarily 
be required of a mixed class, without injury to the 
health of the young ladies. So that there will be in 



33 

mixed colleges a constant tendency to lower the standard 
of scholarship or to diminish the amount required, 
which in the end, will come to the same thing. My own 
impression is, that the policy which has been pursued in 
this college from the first, of separating the sexes, after 
they leave the Academy, and of carrying them through 
their collegiate course, independently of each other, is 
the best for both parties, and that it is the only method 
which will enable us to bring up our colleges to that high 
standard of scholarship which they must attain if they 
are to do the peculiar work which belongs to the Ameri- 
can college. 

But having said this, I wish to add, that I would 
provide no inferior instruction and no inferior course of 
study for young ladies. I look upon the respect which 
men always feel for a woman of intelligence, who does 
not forfeit it, by descending from her high sphere, to 
masculine pursuits and a masculine style, as one of the 
great conservative forces of society. I look upon the 
reverence and love which a son always renders to a 
mother who is worthy of his respect, as the most power- 
ful human agency for the renovation and elevation of the 
race. And I know that a woman who cannot use 
language correctly and elegantly, who cannot observe 
accurately, who cannot reason logically, a woman who 
is ignorant, impulsive, or in any degree weak or silly, 
will never have the respect of her son, and will never 
have that mighty, that absolutely irresistible influence 
over the other sex which it is the high prerogative of 
every truly cultivated woman to wield. I regard there^ 
fore the education which is given in the Knox Female 
Seminary, as in no way less important to the country 
and to the church of Christ, than that given in Knox 
College. Nay, I will go farther, and say — if you will 



34 

give me the education of the mothers of the country, I 
care little who educates its lawyers, doctors and 
clergymen. 

It will be my aim, with your sanction and assistance, 
to secure for the young ladies who may resort to Knox 
Seminary, as high a culture as they are willing to 
receive. And I hope the day is not distant when young 
ladies will demand from that institution, a course of 
study as thorough and comprehensive as that pursued 
in the College, even though it may require, as it probably 
will do, greater length of time to complete it with per- 
fect safety to health. While our sons are as plants 
grown up in their youth, our daughters should be as 
corner stones polished after the similitude of a palace. 

You will, I trust, pardon me, gentlemen, if I turn, for 
a moment, before I close, from this consideration of the 
internal policy of the College, to say a few words, con- 
cerning its relations to the surrounding community. If 
I have correctly read the history of this institution, 
Knox College has been the chief source of the prosperi- 
ty of this city. If I have been correctly informed, it 
offered the inducements, that have given the place those 
unusual railroad facilities, which are promising to make 
it a prominent centre of trade for the vast region 
embraced by the iron bands now being extended over the 
continent. While, by this policy, it has undoubtedly 
advanced its own interests, it has also advanced still 
more the interests of the public. During all this period, 
fellow citizens, it has given your sons and daughters the 
blessings of a Christian education, and, if our present 
plans are successful, it will ere long furnish to your 
children, advantages for culture which will be equal, if 
not superior, to those of any city in the land. If our 
efforts are sustained by } r our sympathy and aid, Knox 



35 

College will do for you, even more, than Yale College has 
done for New Haven, both pecuniarily and educationally. 
You can, if you will, surround this College with an atmos- 
phere of love, as you have done in the years that are 
past. You can cherish it as your most precious treasure. 
You can guard its property with an affectionate watch- 
fulness. You can make the place untenable for the man 
who will defraud it or traduce it. You can visit with a 
disapprobation which shall be felt, the person who for a 
selfish end, or from the love of mischief and gossip shall 
seek to sow the seeds of discontent and animosity. You 
can open your hearts with a genial and hospitable 
welcome to those whom its attractions shall draw into our 
community. In union with the courteous and accom- 
plished gentlemen who conduct the kindred institution 
which it has been your good fortune to bring to your 
city, we have every reason to expect that we may draw 
about us a community of the highest literary and social 
character. 

It is the policy of the Trustees of this College to call 
to its various chairs men of the best scholarship and 
culture, men who are ornaments to the first institutions 
of the land, men so far as possible, who have enjoyed 
the advantages also of the universities of the old world. 
There is a large circle already collected about these 
Colleges, and in this city, who are in the fullest sympathy 
with the refined, scholarly, Christian associations in 
which such men will rejoice. 

By the welcome they will receive among us, the highest 
interests of the College will be promoted, and the highest 
prosperity of our city. 

The skies are bright above us to-day. The long night 
of dissension has passed away we believe forever. We 
stand united in the councils of the College. We are one in 



36 

confidence and in purpose. We look out upon the broad 
acres which are soon to be in the very heart of our 
business precincts, and while we thank God for the 
Christian benevolence of the men who consecrated them 
to Him and to the coming generations, we solemnly and 
joyfully dedicate again, to these high and holy purposes, 
this princely possession. We pray that the Divine 
wisdom may direct all our councils. We pray that the 
Divine love may rule in all our hearts. We pray that 
the Divine Spirit may be a constant presence with us, 
filling these Halls of learning, moving on these young 
hearts, and lifting us all, not only to the highest planes 
of human thought and culture, but to fellowship with 
the society of Heaven and to communion with God. 

With these sentiments, gentlemen, with these aspira- 
tions and with these high hopes, I accept the trust you 
have committed to me to-day. 

May the great God prosper and bless Knox College 
and may all the people say, Amen and Amen! 






